September 29, 2007

Madison Square Garden Sues NHL over Promotions....: MSG which owns the Rangers. The lawsuit said the NHL insisted last week that MSG transfer control over the Rangers independently produced Web site, including the "nyrangers.com" address so that the league could convert it into one of 30 "cookie-cutter" club Web sites at "nhl.com." After spending way to much time on the Cookie Cutter NHL Controlled Team Websites I'm on the side of MSG in this fight.

That's sad, rcade. I wouldn't expect bloggy ranty snark or anything too out there (each team still is, after all, a multimillion dollar corporation), but a splash of individuality would only help me to differentiate as a fan between one team and another. I understand the league's desire to homogenize across all franchises, but I don't think it would kill them to allow each team to hire a local developer and give them a mandated set of guidelines about what needs to be on the site and what they're allowed to use, and then let the individual teams work within that kind of a framework. In fact, I think that's ultimately where the future of team sites is headed. Otherwise the genuinely useful content for each team's supporters (meaning, fans and business leaders for each team) will wind up on unofficial "second sites" operating in gray areas of sanction, which does no one any good. As a team owner, I'd rather have room for whatever is necessary to run my business and serve my clients under my umbrella instead of someone else's, thank you very much.